♪♪ -Next on "Great Performances"... -To be, or not to be... ...that is the question.

-...join us in Central Park for "Shakespeare Under the Stars," for The Bard's classic tale of murder, madness, and revenge.

-I am thy fathers spirit, Hamlet.

-[Gasps] -Doomed for certain term to walk the night.

-Featuring Ato Blankson-Wood, Lorraine Toussaint, John Douglas Thompson, and Solea Pfeiffer.

-He is gone, he is gone, he is gone.

-O, Hamlet, thou has cleft my heart in twain.

-O, throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half.

-The Public Theater's free "Shakespeare in the Park" production of "Hamlet" is next.

-♪ You're not crazy ♪ -Madam, how like you this play?

Aye!

-The lady doth protest too much me thinks.

-Oh, but she'll keep her word.

♪♪ Major funding for "Great Performances" is provided by... ...and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

[ Upbeat hip-hop music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct chatter ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] -♪ There is a time ♪ -♪ A time to be born and a time to die ♪ -♪ There is a time ♪ -♪ A time to laugh and a time to cry ♪ -♪ There is a time ♪ -♪ A time to kill and a time to heal ♪ -♪ There's a time ♪ -♪ A time to break down ♪ ♪ And a time to build ♪ -♪ To everything ♪ -♪ To everything there is ♪ ♪ To everything there is a season ♪ ♪ And a tiiiime ♪ -♪ And a purpose ♪ -♪ Under heaven ♪ -♪ Amen ♪ -♪ Amen, Amen ♪ -♪ To everything ♪ -♪ To everything there is ♪ ♪ To everything there is a season ♪ ♪ And a tiiiime ♪ -♪ And a purpose ♪ -♪ Under heaven ♪ -♪ Ah-Ah-Amen ♪ -♪ Amen, Amen ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Snapping ] -♪ Let your light shine ♪ -♪ Oh, let it shine ♪ -♪ Just let your light shine ♪ -♪ Go and let it shine ♪ -♪ Just let your light shine ♪ -♪ Yeah, let it shine ♪ ♪ Go on and let it shine ♪ ♪ While you still have the time ♪ ♪ You've got to let it shine ♪ -♪ When I wake up each day ♪ -♪ Each day ♪ -♪ The first thing that I do ♪ -♪ I do ♪ -♪ I get on my knees and pray ♪ -♪ I pray ♪ -♪ I say, "Lord, help me through" -♪ Help me through ♪ -♪ If you give me what I need ♪ -♪ What I need ♪ -♪ And a little bit more time ♪ ♪ To show the world your love ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ -♪ So let your light shine ♪ -♪ Oh let it shine ♪ -♪ Just let your light shine go ahead ♪ -♪ And let it shine ♪ -♪ Just let your light shine ♪ -♪ Yeah, let it shine ♪ ♪ Go on and let it shine ♪ ♪ While you still have the time ♪ ♪ You've got to let it shine ♪ ♪ When you know it, know it ♪ ♪ When you need it, need it ♪ ♪ When you find it, find it ♪ ♪ You keep it, keep it ♪ ♪ When you got it, when you got it ♪ ♪ You hold it, you hold it ♪ ♪ You just can't help, can't help ♪ ♪ But to show it, but to show it ♪ ♪ When you feel it you believe it ♪ -♪ You believe it ♪ -♪ By faith ♪ ♪ My eyes have seen it, Oh ♪ -♪ Whenever you got the time ♪ ♪ You've got to let it shine ♪ -♪ So let your light shine ♪ -♪ Oh, let it shine ♪ ♪ Just let your light shine ♪ ♪ Go ahead ♪ -♪ Go and let it shine ♪ -♪ Just let your light shine ♪ -♪ Yeah, let it shine ♪ -♪ Go on and ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ ♪ You got to let it shiiiiine ♪ -♪ Let it shine ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Deep humming ] -♪ When you go, you'll have to go alone ♪ ♪ When you go, you'll have to go alone ♪ ♪ No one in this world ♪ ♪ Can take your journey ♪ ♪ When you go, you'll have to go alone ♪ ♪ When you go, you'll have to wipe your tears ♪ ♪ When you go, you'll have to wipe your tears ♪ ♪ No one in this world ♪ ♪ Can take your journey ♪ ♪ When you go, you'll have to wipe your tears ♪ -♪ When you go ♪ -♪ When you go ♪ -♪ When you go ♪ -♪ When you go ♪ ♪ When you take that lonesome road ♪ ♪ No one in this world ♪ -♪ No one ♪ -♪ Can take your journey ♪ -♪ Can take your journey ♪ -♪ When you go, you'll have to go alone ♪ -♪ Oooooh ♪ -♪ When you go, you'll have to go alone ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[ Sobs ] -♪ Day-o ♪ ♪ Day-ay-ay-ay-o ♪ -♪ Daylight come and me wan' go home ♪ -♪ Day ♪ ♪ Me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day-ay-ay-o ♪ -♪ Daylight come and me wan' go home ♪ ♪♪ -♪ Everything that I have ♪ ♪ And all I am and all that's true ♪ ♪ Is here ♪ ♪ Your hand in my hand ♪ ♪ No matter what path I take ♪ ♪ It leads to you, oh ♪ ♪ So you can doubt that the stars are fire ♪ ♪ You can doubt that the planets move ♪ ♪ You can call the truth a liar ♪ ♪ But don't doubt that I love you ♪ ♪ You can climb to the highest mountains ♪ ♪ Get lost in the deepest sea ♪ ♪ You can try but you'll never find ♪ ♪ A love that's stronger ♪ ♪ A love that's stronger ♪ There's no love stronger than you and me ♪ ♪ Than you and me ♪ ♪ Than you and me ♪ [ Applause ] -Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death, the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe.

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow think on him together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, the imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we as 'twere with a defeated joy, with an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, in equal scale weighing delight and dole Taken to wife.

[ Applause ] Nor have we herein barred your better wisdoms, which have freely gone with this affair along.

For all, our thanks.

[ Applause ] And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?

You told us of some suit.

What is 't, Laertes?

What wouldst thou have?

-My dread lord, your leave and favor to go abroad, from whence though willingly I came to show my duty in your coronation, yet now I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend again o'erseas.

-Have you your father's leave?

What says Polonius?

-He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laborsome petition.

I do beseech you give him leave to go.

-Take thy fair hour, Laertes.

Time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will.

[ Chuckles ] But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son -- -A little more than kin and less than kind.

-How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

-Not so, my lord.

I am too much in the sun.

-Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off.

Do not forever with thy vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know'st 'tis common -- all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.

-Ay, madam, it is common.

-If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?

-"Seems," madam?

Nay, it is.

I know not "seems."

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forced breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected havior of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly.

These indeed "seem," for they are actions that a man might play, but I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe.

-'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, to give these mourning duties to your father.

But you must know your father lost a father, that father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound in filial obligation for some term to do obsequious sorrow.

But to persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness.

'Tis unmanly grief.

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven.

We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe and think of us as of a father -- for let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne.

[ Applause ] And with no less nobility of love than that which dearest father bears his son do I impart toward you.

For your intent in going overseas, it is most retrograde to our desire, and we beseech you, bend you to remain here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

-Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee, stay with us.

-I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

-Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.

Come!

[ Laughs ] Away!

[ Laughs ] [ Applause ] -O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

O God.

God.

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on 't, ah fie!

'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed.

Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

That it should come to this.

But two months dead -- nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.

So loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly.

Heaven and Earth, must I remember?

Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on.

And yet, within a month -- let me not think on 't -- frailty, thy name is woman!

A little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body, like Niobe, all tears, why she -- even she -- O God!

A beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!

Married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules.

Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married.

O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

-Hail to your Lordship.

[ Both laugh ] -I am glad to see you well, Horatio!

Marcellus.

-My good lord.

-I am very glad to see you.

Good evening, sir.

But what is your affair here?

-My lord, we came to see your father's funeral.

-I prithee, do not mock me.

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

-Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

-Thrift, thrift, Horatio.

The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

[ Chuckles ] Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.

My father -- methinks I see my father.

-Where, my lord?

-In my mind's eye, Horatio.

-Yeah, I-I saw him once.

He was a goodly king.

-He was a man.

Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

-[ Chuckles ] My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

-Saw who?

-My lord, the king your father.

-The king my father?

For God's love, let me hear!

-Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch, in the dead waste and middle of the night, been thus encountered a figure like your father, goes slow and stately by them.

Thrice he walked by their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes within his truncheon's length, whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to him.

-But where was this?

-My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

-Did you not speak to it?

-I did, my lord, but answer made it none.

-'Tis very strange.

-As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true.

-Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch tonight?

-We do, my lord.

-We do, my lord.

-I will watch tonight.

Perchance 'twill walk again.

-I warrant it will.

-If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace.

So fare you well.

Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you.

-Our duty to your honor.

-Our duty to your honor.

-To your honor.

-Your loves, as mine to you.

Farewell.

My father's spirit.

All is not well.

I doubt some foul play.

Would the night were come!

Till then, sit still, my soul.

Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

♪♪ -Ah!

My necessaries are embarked.

Oh.

[ Chuckles ] Farewell.

And, sister, as the winds give benefit and convey is assistant, do not sleep, but let me hear from you.

-Do you doubt that?

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature.

Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting.

The perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more.

-No more but so?

-Think it no more.

Perhaps he loves you now, but you must fear, his greatness weighed, his will is not his own.

For he himself is subject to his birth.

He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself, for on his choice depends the safety and the health of this whole state.

Fear it, Ophelia.

Fear it, dear sister, and keep you in the rear of your affection, out of the shot and danger of desire.

-I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart.

But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.

-O, fear me not.

I stay too long.

But here our father comes.

"A double blessing is a double grace.

Occasion smiles upon a second leave."

-Yet here, Laertes?

For shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, and you are stayed for.

[ Groans ] [ Laughter ] There, my blessing with thee.

And these few precepts in thy memory look thou character.

Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear 't that th' opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy rich, not gaudy, for the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all... to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell.

My blessing season this in thee.

-Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

-The time invites you.

Go.

-Farewell.

Ophelia, remember well what I have said to you.

-'Tis in my memory locked, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

-Farewell.

[ Chuckles ] -What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

-So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

-Marry, well bethought.

'Tis told me he hath very oft of late given private time to you, and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous.

[ Laughter ] What's between you?

-[ Giggles ] -Give me up the truth.

-He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.

-Affection.

Oh... You speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his "tenders," as you call them?

-I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

-Marry, I will teach you, think yourself a baby that you've taken his tenders for true pay, which are not sterling.

Tender yourself more dearly, or you'll tender me a fool.

-My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honorable fashion.

-Ah, "fashion" you may call it.

Go to, go to!

-And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven.

-Oh, springes to catch woodcocks!

I do know, when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows.

From this time be something scanter of your maiden presence.

In few, Ophelia, do not believe his vows.

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, have you so slander any moment leisure as to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to it, I charge you.

Come your ways.

-I shall obey, my lord.

[ Ominous music plays ] ♪♪ -What hour now?

-I think it lacks of twelve.

-No, it is struck.

[ Ghost moans ] -Look, my lord, it comes!

-Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou com'st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee.

I'll call thee "Hamlet," "King," "Father," O, answer me!

[ Rumbling ] -Ghost: Hamlet.

-It beckons you to go away with it as if it some impartment did desire to you alone.

-Look with what courteous action it waves you to a more removed ground.

But do not go with it.

-No, no, by no means.

-It will not speak.

Then I will follow it.

-Do not, my lord.

-Why?

What should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

And for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself?

-Ghost: Come, my soul.

-It waves me forth again.

I'll follow it.

-Hey, what-- What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord.

or to the dreadful summit of the cliff and draw you into madness?

Huh?

Think of it.

-You shall not go, my lord.

-Hold off your hands.

-Do not be ruled.

-My fate cries out.

Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!

I say, away!

[ Ghost moans ] Go on.

I'll follow thee.

-Let's follow.

-'Tis not fit thus to obey him.

[ Ghost moans ] [ Indistinct speaking ] -Ghost: I must tell him.

He must know.

Hamlet.

-Whither wilt thou lead me?

Speak.

I'll go no further.

-Mark me.

-I will.

-My hour is almost come when I to sulferous and tormenting flames must render up myself.

-Alas, poor ghost!

-Pity me not son, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

-Speak.

I am bound to hear.

-So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

-What?

-I am thy father's spirit, Hamlet, doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away.

But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, son.

List, list, O list!

If thou didst ever thy father love son... -O God!

-...revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

[ Wind rushes ] [ Hamlet breathes heavily ] -Murder?

-Murder most foul, as in the best it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

-Haste me to know it, that I may sweep to my revenge.

-I find thee apt.

Now, Hamlet, hear.

'Tis given out that sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me.

But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.

-O, my prophetic soul!

My uncle!

-[Ghost possessing Hamlet ] Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!

So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will sate itself in a celestial bed and prey on garbage.

But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be.

Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon, upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of cursed hebona in a vial and in the porches of my ears did pour the leprous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched.

Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin, unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, no reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed be made, my son, a couch for luxury and damned incest.

But, howsomever thou pursues this act, taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.

leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge prick and sting her.

Adieu.

Adieu, adieu my son.

Remember me.

[ Hamlet gasps, breathes heavily ] [ Applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] All you host of heaven!

O Earth!

What else?

And shall I couple hell?

O fie!

Hold!

Hold, my heart, and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up.

Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat in this distracted globe.

Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial, fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there, And thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter.

Yes, by heaven!

O most pernicious woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

My tables -- meet it is I set it down that one may smile and smile and be a villain.

So, Uncle, there you are.

Now to my word.

It is "adieu, adieu, remember me."

I have sworn 't.

-My lord!

My lord!

-How is it, my noble lord?

-What news, my lord?

-Oh, wonderful!

Good my lord, tell it.

-No.

You will reveal it.

-Not I, my lord, by heaven.

-Nor I, my lord.

-How say you, then?

Would heart of man once think it?

But you'll be secret?

-Ay, by heaven, my lord.

-Never make known what you have seen tonight.

-My lord, we will not.

-Nay, but swear it.

-In faith, my lord, not I.

-Nor I, my lord, in faith.

-Upon my sword.

-We have sworn, my lord, already.

-Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

-Ghost: Swear.

-Come on.

[ Laughter ] You hear this fellow in the cellarage.

Consent to swear.

-Propose the oath, my lord.

-Never to speak of this that you have seen.

Swear by my sword.

-Ghost: Swear by his sword.

-Well said, old mole.

Canst work in the earth so fast?

-Once more -- [ Grunts ] remove, good friends.

Day and night.

[ Winces ] This is wondrous strange.

-And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

But come.

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd some'er I bear myself as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on, that you, at such times seeing me, never shall, with arms encumbered thus, or thus headshake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, as "Well, well, we know," or "We could an if we would," or "If we list to speak," or "There be an if they might," or such ambiguous giving-out, to note that you know aught of me.

This do swear, so grace and mercy at your most need help you.

-Ghost: Swear.

-Rest.

Rest, perturbed spirit.

So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack.

Let us go in together, and still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint.

O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!

[ Cheers and applause ] -How now, Ophelia, what's the matter?

-O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

-With what, in the name of God?

-My lord, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, and with a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors -- he comes before me.

-Mad for thy love?

-My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.

-What said he?

-He took me by the wrist and held me hard.

Then goes he to the length of all his arm, and, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, he falls to such perusal of my face as he would draw it.

Long stayed he so.

At last, a little shaking of mine arm, and thrice his head thus waving up and down, he raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being.

That done, he lets me go, and, with his head over his shoulder turned, he seemed to find his way without his eyes, for out o' doors he went without their helps and to the last bended their light on me.

-Come, go with me.

I will go seek the King.

This is the very ecstasy of love.

I am sorry.

[ Laughter ] What, have you given him any hard words of late?

-No, my good lord, but as you did command I did repel his letters and denied his access to me.

-That hath made him mad.

Come, go we to the King.

This must be known, which, being kept close, might move more grief to hide than hate to utter love.

Come.

[ Playful screaming ] [ Giggling ] -Oh!

[ Giggling ] [ Moaning ] [ Laughter ] Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Something have you heard of Hamlet's transformation, so call it, sith nor the exterior nor the inward man resembles that it was.

What it should be, more than his father's death, that thus hath put him so much from the understanding of himself I cannot dream of.

I entreat you both, that being of so young days brought up with him, that you vouchsafe your rest here in our court some little time, so by your companies to draw him on to pleasures, and to gather so much as from occasion you may glean, whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus.

That, opened, lies within our remedy.

-Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you, and sure I am two men there is not living to whom he more adheres.

Both your Majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty.

-But we both obey, and here give up ourselves in the full bent to lay our service freely at your feet, to be commanded.

-Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

-Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son.

Go, and bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

-Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him!

-Ay!

Amen!

-[ Laughs ] Oh-wo-wo!

-Now I-- Oh!

[ Laughter ] Now I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

-He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found the head and source of all your son's distemper.

-I doubt it is no other but the main -- his father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.

-My liege, and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night, and time is time were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

[ Laughter ] Your noble son is mad.

[ Laughter ] "Mad" call I it, for, to define true madness... [ Laughter ] ...what is 't but to be nothing else but mad?

But let that go.

-More matter with less art.

-Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he's mad, 'tis true -- 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis -- 'tis true-- a foolish figure, but farewell it, for I will use no art.

I have a daughter -- have while she is mine -- who, in her duty and obedience, mark, hath given me this.

Now gather and surmise.

"To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia--" that's an ill phrase, a vile phrase -- "beautified"?

That's a vile phrase.

[ Laughter ] But you shall hear.

Thus, "In her excellent white bosom..." [ Laughter ] ...etc.

[ Laughter ] -Came this from Hamlet to her?

-Good madam, stay awhile.

I will be faithful.

"Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers.

I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, oh, most best, believe it.

Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet."

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me, And more above, hath his solicitings, as they fell out by time, by means, and place, all given to mine ear.

-But how hath she received his love?

-What do you think of me?

[ Laughter ] -As of a man faithful and honorable.

-I would fain prove so.

But what might you think, when I had seen this hot love on the wing, what might you think?

No, I went round to work, and my young mistress thus I did bespeak, "Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.

This must not be."

And then I prescripts gave her, that she should lock herself from his resort, admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, and he, repelled -- a short tale to make -- fell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, into the madness wherein now he raves and all we mourn for.

-Do you think 'tis this?

-It may be, very like.

-Hath there been such a time -- I would fain know that -- that I have positively said "'Tis so," when it proved otherwise?

-Not that I know.

-Take this from this, if this be otherwise.

-How may we try it further?

Sometimes he walks four hours together here in the lobby.

-So he does indeed.

-At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.

And you and I will mark the encounter.

-We will try it.

-But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

-Away, I do beseech you both, away.

I'll board him presently.

O, give me leave.

[ Laughter ] How does my good Lord Hamlet?

-Well, God-a-mercy.

-Do you know me, my lord?

-Excellent well.

You are a fishmonger.

-Not I, my lord.

-Then I would you were so honest a man.

-Honest, my lord?

-Ay, sir.

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

-[ Chuckles ] That's very true, my lord.

-For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion-- Have you a daughter?

-I have, my lord.

-Let her not walk in the sun.

Conception is a blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to it.

-How say you by that?

Still harping on my daughter.

Yet he knew me not at first, he said I was a fishmonger.

He is far gone.

And truly, in my youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very near this.

I'll speak to him again.

What do you read, my lord?

-Words, words, words.

-What is the matter, my lord?

-Between who?

-[ Chuckles nervously ] I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

-Slanders, sir, for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray hair, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams -- all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.

For yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

-Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Into my grave?

-Indeed, that's -- that's out of the air.

How pregnant sometimes his replies are!

I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.

-My lord, I will take my leave of you.

-You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal -- except my life, except my life, except my life.

-Fare you well, my lord.

-These tedious old fools.

-You go to seek the Lord Hamlet.

There he is.

[ Laughter ] -God save you, sir.

-My honored lord.

-My most dear lord.

-My excellent good friends!

How dost thou, Guildenstern?

-Both: Ah!

-Rosencrantz!

Good lads, how do you both?

-As the indifferent children of the earth.

-Happy in that we are not overhappy.

On Fortune's cap, we are not the very button.

-Nor the soles of her shoe?

-Neither, my lord.

-Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?

-Faith, her privates we.

-In the secret parts of Fortune?

Most true!

What news?

-None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

-Then is doomsday near.

But your news is not true.

Let me question more in particular.

What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

-[ Chuckles ] Prison, my lord?

-Our country is a prison.

-Then is the world one.

-A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, this being one of the worst.

-We think not so, my lord.

-Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

To me, it is a prison.

But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you here?

-To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

-Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.

But I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.

Were you not sent for?

Is it your own inclining?

Is it a free visitation?

Come, come, deal justly with me.

Come, come.

Nay, speak.

-What should we say, my lord?

-Anything but to the purpose.

You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color.

[ Laughter ] I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

-To what end, my lord?

-That you must teach me.

But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or no.

-What say you?

-Nay, then, I have an eye of you.

[ Laughter ] If you love me, hold not off.

-Oh, my lord, we were sent for.

-I will tell you why.

So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen molt no feather.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.

This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire.

Why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.

What a piece of work is a man.

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty.

In form and moving how express and admirable.

In action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god.

The beauty of the world.

The paragon of animals.

-And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me.

No, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

-My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

-Why did you laugh, then, when I said "man delights not me"?

-To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what entertainment the players shall receive from you.

We met them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

-What players are they?

-Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

-Gentlemen, you are welcome.

Your hands, come then.

You are welcome.

But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

[ Laughter ] -In what, my dear lord?

-I am but mad north-north-west.

When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

-Well be with you, gentlemen.

-Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players.

Mark it.

You say right, sir.

A Monday morning 'twas then indeed.

[ Forced laughter ] -My lord, I have news to tell you.

-My lord, I have news to tell you.

When Roscius was an actor in Rome-- -The actors are come hither, my lord.

-Buzz, buzz.

-Upon my honor-- -Then came each actor on his ass.

-The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-comical- historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.

-O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Hey!

-What a treasure had he, my lord?

-Why, ♪ One fair daughter, and no more ♪ ♪ The which he loved passing well ♪ -Still on my daughter.

-Am I not in the right, old Jephthah?

[ Women laughing ] You are welcome, masters, welcome all.

I am glad to see thee well.

Welcome, good friends.

-Ow!

-O my old friend!

Masters, you are all welcome.

We'll have a song straight.

Come, give us a taste of your quality.

Come, a passionate song.

-What song, my good lord?

-I heard thee sing me a song once, but it pleased not the million.

'Twas caviary to the general.

But it was -- as I received it, and others whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine -- set down with as much modesty as cunning.

If it live in your memory, begin at this line -- let me see.

Let me see.

♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods cry, Gods cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry ♪ ♪ It could make the Gods cry ♪ ♪ Yea -- ♪ [ Stutters ] So, proceed you.

-That was good.

-♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods Cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry, Gods cry ♪ ♪ It could make the Gods cry ♪ Look.

[ Rapping ] ♪ I ain't a killer ♪ ♪ At least I thought I wasn't ♪ ♪ But when they push you to the edge ♪ ♪ Ain't no tellin' youngn' ♪ ♪ Cuz my demons are wit me ♪ ♪ And they all yelling, cussin' ♪ ♪ And they all screamin' get even with ♪ ♪ All these kissin' cousins ♪ ♪ Dark knights, chest plates ♪ ♪ Wipe the furrow from my brow just to save face ♪ ♪ How you feel when you first taste blood ♪ ♪ Sweet revenge in the air and for a moment it smell good ♪ ♪ Wanna chop 'em like Priam ♪ ♪ Stick 'em wit da pointy end, send 'em to heaven ♪ ♪ He Southern Baptist... ♪ -This is too long.

[ Laughter ] -It shall to the barber's with your beard.

Prithee, sing on.

-♪ Wanna chop 'em like Priam ♪ ♪ Stick 'em wit da pointy end send 'em to heaven ♪ ♪ He Southern Baptist, born again ♪ ♪ Then raise 'em up just right ♪ ♪ Just so its a fair fight ♪ ♪ Just so you can kill 'em twice, make ya point pointier ♪ ♪ And if like minds joined in, and everyone got even ♪ ♪ Hecuba gon' shed some tears at Greco revolution ♪ ♪ So call me crazy, call my bluff ♪ ♪ Call it spirits risin' up ♪ ♪ Just don't call me a soul ♪ ♪ That never tried to lead with love ♪ [ Singing ] ♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods Cry Gods cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry, it could make the Gods cry ♪ ♪ Yeah-eah ♪ -♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods Cry Gods cry Gods cry ♪ ♪ It could make the Gods cry ♪ -♪ Yeah-eah ♪ -Look whe'er he has not turned his color and has tears in his eyes.

Prithee, no more.

-'Tis well.

I'll have thee sing out the rest of this soon.

Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed?

Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.

After your death, you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

-My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

-God's bodykins, man!

Much better.

Use every man after his desert and who shall 'scape whipping?

Use them after your own honor and dignity.

The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.

Take them in.

-Come, sirs.

-Follow him, friends.

Dost thou hear me, old friend?

Can you play "The Murder of Gonzago"?

-Ay, my lord.

-We'll have it tomorrow night.

You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in 't, could you not?

-Ay, my lord.

-Very well.

Follow that lord, And look you -- mock him not.

My good friends, I'll leave you till night.

You are welcome.

Good my lord.

-Aye.

So, goodbye to you.

[ Sighs ] Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wann'd.

Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and all for nothing.

What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have?

Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain?

Gives me the lie in the throat as deep as to the lungs?

Who does me this?

Ha!

I should take it.

For it cannot be but I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall to make oppression bitter.

Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I!

This is most brave.

That I, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words.

Fie upon't!

Foh!

About, my brains.

I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaim'd their malefactions.

I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle.

I'll observe his looks.

If he but blench, I know my course.

The spirit that I have seen may be the devil and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.

Yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me.

I'll have grounds more relative than this.

The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[ Applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] -And can you by no drift of conference get from him why he puts on this confusion.

-He does confess he feels himself distracted, but from what cause, he will by no means speak.

-Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, but with a crafty madness.

Keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state.

-Did he receive you well?

-Most like a gentleman.

-But with much forcing of his disposition.

-Did you assay him to any pastime?

-Madam, it so fell out that certain players we o'erraught on the way.

Of these we told him, and there did seem in him a kind of joy to hear of it.

They are here about the court, and, as I think, they have already order this night to play before him.

-'Tis most true, and he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties to hear and see the matter.

-With all my heart, and it doth much content me to hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge and drive his purpose into these delights.

-We shall, my lord.

-Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, for we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, that he, as 'twere by accident, may here affront Ophelia.

Her father and myself, lawful espials, will so bestow ourselves that seeing unseen, we may of their encounter frankly judge.

-I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness.

So shall I hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again.

To both your honors.

-Madam, I wish it may.

-Ophelia, walk you here.

Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves.

Read on this book, I hear him coming.

Let's withdraw, my lord.

-To be or not to be... that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.

To die, to sleep -- no more -- and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to.

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.

There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time.

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th' unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life... ...but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will... [ Sobs ] ...And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

Soft you now, The fair Ophelia.

Nymph.

In thy orisons be all my sins remembered.

-Good my lord... how does your honor for this many a day?

-I humbly thank you.

Well.

-My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to redeliver.

I pray you now receive them.

No, not I. I never gave you aught.

-My honored lord, you know right well you did.

And with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich.

Their perfume lost, take these again, for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There.

My lord.

-[ Chuckles ] Are you honest?

-My lord?

-Are you fair?

-What means your Lordship?

-That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

-Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

-Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.

I did love you once.

-Indeed.

You made me believe so.

-You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.

I loved you not.

-I was the more deceived.

-Get thee to a nunnery.

Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.

Get thy ways to a nunnery.

Where's your father?

-At home, my lord.

-Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house.

Farewell.

-Help him, you sweet heavens!

-If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Get thee to a nunnery, farewell.

Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.

To a nunnery, go, and quickly too.

Farewell.

-Heavenly powers, restore him!

-I have heard of your paintings too, well enough.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.

Go to, I'll no more on 't.

It hath made me mad!

I say we will have no more marriage.

Those that are married already, all but one, shall live.

The rest shall keep as they are.

To a nunnery.

Go.

-Oh... what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, who sucked the music of his honey vows now see that noble and most sovereign reason like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh.

O, woe is me.

To have seen what I have seen, to see what I see.

-Love?

His affections do not that way tend.

Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness.

There's something in his soul o'er which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger; which for to prevent, I have in quick determination thus set it down.

He shall with speed abroad, haply the seas, and countries different, shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart.

What think you on 't?

-It shall do well.

But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love.

How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said, we heard it all.

My lord, do as you please, but, if you hold it fit, after the play let his queen-mother all alone entreat him to show his grief.

Let her be round with him and I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear of all their conference.

-It shall be so.

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

♪♪ -Speak the speech, I pray you as I pronounced it to you.

Trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.

Horatio!

-Here, my good lord, at your service.

-Horatio Thou art e'en as just a man as e'er my conversation coped withal.

-O, my dear lord.

-Nay.

Do not think I flatter.

Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart as I do thee.

Something too much of this.

There is a play tonight before the king.

One scene of it comes near the circumstance which I have told thee of my father's death.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, even with the very comment of thy soul, observe my uncle.

Give him heedful note, for I mine eyes will rivet to his face, and, after, we will both our judgments join in censure of his seeming.

-Well, my lord, if he steal aught the whilst this play is playing and 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

-They are coming to the play.

I must be idle.

Get you a place.

♪♪ [ Applause ] [ Plays recorder badly ] -[ Laughs ] How fares our cousin Hamlet?

-Excellent, i' faith, of the chameleon's dish.

I eat the air, promise-crammed.

You cannot feed capons so.

-I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.

These words are not mine.

-No, nor mine now.

My lord, you played once in the university, you say?

-That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

-What did you enact?

-I did enact Julius Caesar.

I was killed at the Capitol.

Brutus killed me.

-Mm, it was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.

[ Laughs sarcastically ] Be the players ready?

-Ay, my lord.

They stay upon your patience.

Good Hamlet, come hither.

Sit by me.

-No, good mother.

Here's metal more attractive.

-Oh, ho!

Do you mark that?

-Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

-No...my lord.

-I mean, my head upon your lap?

-Ay, my lord.

-Do you think I meant country matters?

-I think nothing, my lord.

-That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

-What is, my lord?

-Nothing.

-You are merry, my lord.

-Who, I?

-Ay, my lord.

♪♪ -♪ Ay ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Ay ♪ ♪ Ay ay ♪ ♪ Ay, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Days are precious when you're livin' in a warzone ♪ ♪ Tryna live heart heavy like a diamond ♪ ♪ City's cold but the streets are even colder ♪ ♪ Gotta get out 'fore they say my time is over ♪ ♪ Breaking down over people that we miss, yeah ♪ ♪ Cryin', tryna find a way to exist, yeah ♪ ♪ In the jungle, where you fight to survive ♪ ♪ Gotta keep your head high keep your spirit alive ♪ ♪ It's a... ♪ -♪ Cold, cold world ♪ -♪ The quicker you rise the harder you fall ♪ ♪ It's a... ♪ -♪ Cold, cold world ♪ -♪ In a blink of an eye they don't know you at all ♪ ♪ No, it's a one way without a way back ♪ ♪ It's a rat race on a mousetrap ♪ ♪ And nobody knows ♪ ♪ But somebody knows ♪ ♪ You're not crazy ♪ -Madam, how like you this play?

Ay!

-The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

-O, but she'll keep her word.

-Have you heard the argument?

Is there no offense in 't?

-No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest.

No offense in the world.

-What do you call the play?

-"The Mousetrap."

Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife Baptista.

You shall see anon.

'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that?

Your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

-You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

-I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

-You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

-It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.

-Still better and worse.

-So you must take your husbands.

Begin, murderer.

Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

He poisons him in the garden for his estate.

His name's Gonzago.

You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

-The king rises.

-What, frighted with false fire?

-How fares my lord?

-Give o'er the play.

Give me some light.

Away!

-Lights, lights, lights!

-O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound.

Didst perceive?

-Very well, my lord.

-Upon the talk of the poisoning?

-I did very well note him.

-Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

-Sir, a whole history.

-The king, sir -- -Ay, sir, what of him?

-Is in his retirement marvelous distempered.

-With drink, sir?

-No, my lord.

The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

-You are welcome.

-Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.

If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment.

But if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

-Sir, I cannot.

-What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer.

-My wit's diseased.

But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command, or rather, as you say, my mother.

Therefore no more but to the matter.

My mother, you say -- -Then thus she says, your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

-O wonderful son that can so 'stonish a mother!

But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration?

Impart.

-She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

-We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.

Have you any further trade with us?

-My lord, you once did love me.

-And do still, by these pickers and stealers.

-Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?

You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

-Sir, I lack advancement.

-How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession?

-Ay, sir, but "While the grass grows" -- the proverb is something musty.

Will you play upon this pipe?

[ Laughter ] -My lord, I cannot.

-I pray you.

-Believe me, I cannot.

-I do beseech you.

-I know no touch of it, my lord.

-It is as easy as lying.

Look you, these are the stops.

-But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony.

I have not the skill.

-Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me.

You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.

And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.

'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?

Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

God bless you, sir.

-My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

-Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

-By the mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.

-Methinks it is like a weasel.

-It is backed like a weasel.

-Or like a whale.

-Very like a whale.

-Then I will come to my mother by and by.

They fool me to the top of my bent.

I will come by and by.

-I will say so.

-"By and by" is easily said.

Leave me, friends.

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

Now could I drink hot blood and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.

Soft, now to my mother.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

[ Applause ] -I like him not, nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range.

Therefore prepare you.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch, and overseas he'll go along with you.

-We will haste us.

-My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.

Behind the arras I'll convey myself to hear the process.

Fare you well, my liege.

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed and tell you what I know.

-Thanks, dear my lord.

[ Coughs ] [ Groans, sobs ] O, my offense is rank.

It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon, a brother's murder.

Pray can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, and, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin and both neglect.

What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood?

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?

Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense?

And what's in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestalled ere we come to fall, or pardoned being down?

Then I'll look up.

My fault is past.

But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn?

"Forgive me my foul murder?"

That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder.

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain the offense?

In the corrupted currents of this world, offense's gilded hand may shove by justice, and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.

But 'tis not so above.

There is no shuffling.

There the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, to give in evidence.

What then?

What rests?

Try what repentance can.

What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

O wretched state!

O bosom black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged!

Help, angels.

Make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.

All may be well.

-Now might I do it.

Now he is a-praying, and now I'll do it.

And so he goes to heaven, and so am I revenged.

That would be scanned.

A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven?

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance and course of thought 'tis heavy with him.

And am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No.

Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed, at game, a-swearing, or about some act that has no relish of salvation in 't-- Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell, whereto it goes.

My mother stays.

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

♪♪ -[ Sniffles ] My words fly up.

♪♪ My thoughts remain below.

♪♪ Words without thoughts... never to heaven go.

[ Dramatic tone plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ ] ♪♪ [ Applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Indistinct chatter ] ♪♪ -♪ Ha!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Ha!

♪ [ Applause ] -He will come straight.

Look you lay home to him.

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with and that your grace hath screened and stood between much heat and him.

I'll silence me even here.

Pray you, be round with him.

-I'll warrant you.

Fear me not.

Withdraw, I-I hear him coming.

-Now, Mother, what's the matter?

-Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

-Mother, you have my father much offended.

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

-Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

-Why, how now, Hamlet?

-What's the matter now?

-Have you forgot me?

-No, not so.

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife, and would it were not so, you are my mother.

-Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.

-Come, come, and sit you down.

You shall not budge.

You go not till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.

-What wilt thou do?

Thou wilt not murder me?

Help, ho!

-Polonius: Oh, no!

Help!

-How now, a rat?

Dead for a ducat, dead.

[ Grunts ] [ Polonius groans ] -O me.

What hast thou done?

-Nay, I know not.

Is it the King?

-O, what a rash and bloody deed is this.

-A bloody deed?

Almost as bad, good mother, as kill a king and marry with his brother.

-As kill a king?

-Ay, lady, it was my word.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool.

Farewell.

I took thee for thy better.

Take thy fortune.

Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.

Leave wringing of your hands.

Peace, sit you down, and let me wring your heart.

For so I shall if it be made of penetrable stuff, If damned custom have not brassed it so that it be proof and bulwark against sense.

-What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me?

-Such an act that blurs the grace and blush of modesty, calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent love and sets a blister there, makes marriage vows as false as dicers' oaths.

-Ay me.

What act?

-Look here upon this picture and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated on this brow?

Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself.

This was your husband.

Look you now what follows.

Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed and batten on this moor?

Ha!

Have you eyes?

You cannot call it love, for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble and waits upon the judgment.

And what judgment would step from this to this?

[ Laughter ] Sense sure you have, else could you not have motion.

But sure that sense is apoplexed for madness would not air nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled, but it would reserved some quantity of choice to serve in such a difference.

What devil was't that thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?

O shame, where is thy blush?

-O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn'st my eyes into my very soul, and there I see such black and grained spots as will leave there their tinct.

-Nay.

But to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty!

-Speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in my ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

-A murderer and a villain, a cutpurse of the empire and the rule, that from a shelf the precious diadem stole and put it in his pocket.

-No more!

-A king of shreds and patches-- -Ghost: Oh, my soul.

-Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!

What would your gracious figure?

-Alas, he's mad.

-Do you not come your tardy son to chide, that, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by the important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

-Ghost: Do not forget.

This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul.

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

-How is it with you, lady?

-Alas, how is 't with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy and with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.

Whereon do you look?

-On him, on him!

Look you how pale he glares.

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, would make them capable.

Do not look upon me, lest with this piteous action you convert my stern effects.

Then what I have to do Will want true color -- tears perchance for blood.

-To whom do you speak this?

-Do you see nothing there?

Nothing but ourselves.

No.

Nothing.

Nothing.

-Nor did you nothing hear?

-No!

Nothing but ourselves.

-Why, look you there, look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

-This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in.

-Ecstasy?

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time and makes as healthful music.

It is not madness that I have uttered.

Bring me to the test, and I the matter will reword, which madness would gambol from.

Mother, for love of grace, lay not that flattering unction to your soul that not your trespass but my madness speaks.

Confess yourself to heaven, repent what's past, avoid what is to come, and do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker.

-O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!

-O, throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half!

Good night.

But go not to my uncle's bed.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

Refrain tonight, and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence, the next more easy.

For use almost can change the stamp of nature and either house the devil or throw him out with wondrous potency.

Once more, good night, and, when you are desirous to be blest, I'll blessing beg of you.

For this same lord, I do repent.

But heaven hath pleased it so to punish me with this and this with me, that I must be their scourge and minister.

I will bestow him and will answer well the death I gave him.

So, again, good night.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

This bad begins, and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

-What shall I do?

-Not this by no means that I bid you do.

Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse, and let him, for a pair of reechy kisses or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers, make you to ravel all this matter out that I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft.

-Be thou assured, if words be made of breath and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me.

-I must abroad, you know that.

-Alack, I had forgot!

'Tis so concluded on.

-There's letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows, whom I will trust as I will adders fanged, they bear the mandate.

They must sweep my way and marshal me to knavery.

Let it work, for 'tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard.

And it shall go hard, but I will delve one yard below their mines and blow them at the moon.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room.

Mother, good night indeed.

This counselor is now most still, most secret, and most grave, who was in life a foolish prating knave.

Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, mother.

-Where is your son?

-Bestow this place on us a little while!

Oh, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!

-What, Gertrude?

How does Hamlet?

-Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier.

In his lawless fit, behind the arras hearing something stir, whips out his dagger, cries "A rat, a rat," and in this brainish apprehension kills the unseen good old man.

-O heavy deed.

It had been so with us, had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all -- to you yourself, to us, to everyone.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?

It will be laid to us, whose providence should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt this mad young man.

Where is he gone?

To draw apart the body he hath killed, o'er whom his very madness, like some ore among a mineral of metals base, shows itself pure.

He weeps for what is done.

-O Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch but we will ship him hence, and this vile deed we must with all our majesty and skill both countenance and excuse.

Ho, Guildenstern!

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, and from his mother's closet hath he dragged him.

Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel.

I pray you, haste in this.

[ Breathing heavily ] -[ Sobs ] Hmm.

Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends and let them know both what we mean to do and what's untimely done.

O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

[ Applause ] [ Ominous music plays ] ♪♪ -Safely stowed.

-Hamlet!

-But soft, what noise?

Who calls on Hamlet?

-Lord Hamlet.

-O, here they come.

-What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

-Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.

-Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel.

-Do not believe it.

-Believe what?

-That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.

Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king?

-Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

-Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities.

When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

-I understand you not, my lord.

-I am glad of it.

A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

-My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the king.

-The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.

The king is a thing-- -A "thing"?

My lord.

-Of nothing.

Bring me to him.

Hide, fox, and all after!

♪♪ -I have sent to seek him and to find the body.

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!

Yet must not we put the strong law on him.

He's loved of the distracted multitude.

How now, what hath befallen?

-Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, we cannot get from him.

-But where is he?

Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.

-Bring him before us.

-Ho!

Bring in the lord.

-Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

-At supper.

-At supper where?

-Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.

-Mm.

-[ Laughter ] -A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.

-Alas, alas!

-A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

-What dost thou mean by this?

-Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

[ Hamlet grunts, groans ] -Where is Polonius?!

-In heaven.

Send thither to see.

If your messenger find him not there, seek him in the other place yourself.

But if, indeed, you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

-Go, seek him there.

He will stay till ye come.

[ Laughter ] -Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety -- which we do tender as we dearly grieve for that which thou hast done -- must send thee hence with fiery quickness.

Therefore prepare thyself.

-Good.

-So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

-I see a cherub that sees them.

Farewell, dear mother.

-Thy loving father, Hamlet.

-My mother.

Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh, and so... my mother.

[ Laughter ] -Follow him at foot.

Tempt him with speed aboard.

Delay it not.

I'll have him hence tonight.

Away, for everything is sealed and done that else leans on the affair.

And if my love thou hold'st at aught... effect the present death of Hamlet.

For like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me.

Till I know 'tis done, howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin.

-♪ Ha!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪♪ -I will not speak with her.

-She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

-What would she have?

-Her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection.

They aim at it and botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them, indeed would make one think there might be thought, though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

-Let her come in.

To my sick soul -- as sin's true nature is -- each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.

-Where is the beauteous Majesty?

-How now, Ophelia?

-♪ How will my true love know ♪ ♪ From another one?

♪ ♪ By his cockle hat and staff ♪ ♪ And his sandals on ♪ -Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

-Say you?

Nay, nay, pray you, mark.

♪ He is dead and gone ♪ ♪ Lady ♪ He is dead and gone!

♪ At his head, a grass-green turf ♪ ♪ At his heels a stone ♪ ♪ At his head, a grass-green turf ♪ ♪ At his heels a stone ♪ -Nay-- -Pray you, mark!

♪ White his shroud as the mountain snow ♪ ♪ Ohhhh ♪ -Alas, look here, my lord.

-How do you, pretty lady?

-Well, Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be.

God be at your table.

-Conceit upon her father.

-Pray let's have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this: ♪ Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day ♪ ♪ And here I am, early in the morning time ♪ ♪ Underneath his window, a maid ♪ ♪ Say you'll be my Valentine ♪ ♪ And up he rose ♪ ♪ And donned his clothes ♪ ♪ And dupped the chamber door ♪ ♪ Let in a maid, who, when she left ♪ ♪ Wasn't a maid anymore ♪ -Pretty Ophelia-- -"Pretty Ophelia"-- Pretty Ophelia indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on it.

By Gis and Saint Charity, it's hard to believe, it's a shame!

Young men will do it, and if they come to it as sure as they breathe, they're to blame.

-Ophelia!

-Quoth he, "Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed." And he said, "So would I ha' done, by yonder sun had thou not come to my bed."

Can you believe that's what he said?

-How long hath she been thus?

-I hope all will be well.

We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him in the cold ground.

My brother shall know of it.

And so I thank you for your good counsel.

Come, my coach!

[ Chuckles ] Good night, ladies.

Good night, sweet ladies, good night.

Good night!

Good night.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Follow her close.

Give her good watch, I pray you.

O, this is the poison of deep grief.

It springs all from her father's death, and now behold!

O Gertrude, Gertrude, when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

First, her father slain.

Next, your son gone, and he most violent author of his own just remove.

The people muddied, thick, and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers for good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him.

Ah!

Poor Ophelia divided from herself and her fair judgment, without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.

Last -- and as much containing as all these -- her brother is in secret come, feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, and wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches of his father's death, wherein necessity, of matter beggared, will nothing stick our person to arraign in ear and ear.

[ Sobs ] O, my dear Gertrude, this, like to a murdering piece, in many places gives me superfluous death.

[ Indistinct yelling offstage ] -Alack, what noise is this?

-Save yourself, my lord.

The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not the flats with more impiteous haste than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers.

The rabble call him "lord," and -- as the world were now but to begin, antiquity forgot, custom not known, the ratifiers and props of every word -- they cry "Choose we!

Laertes shall be king!"

-Crowd: Laertes shall be king!

-Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, "Laertes shall be king!

Laertes king!"

-Those damned dogs.

-O, thou vile king, Give me my father!

-Calmly, good Laertes.

-That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, cries "Cuckold" to my father, brands the harlot even here between the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother.

-What is the cause, Laertes, that thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude.

Do not fear our person.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king that treason can but peep to what it would, acts little of his will.

Tell me, Laertes, why thou art thus incensed.

Let him go, Gertrude.

Speak, man.

-Where is my father?

-Dead.

-But not by him.

-Let him demand his fill.

-How came he dead?

I'll not be juggled with.

To hell, allegiance!

Vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation.

To this point I stand, that both the worlds I give to negligence.

Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.

-Good Laertes, if you desire to know the certainty of your dear father, is it writ in your revenge that, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, winner and loser?

-None but his enemies.

-Will you know them, then?

-To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms, and like the kind life-rendering pelican, repast them with my blood.

-Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death and am most sensibly in grief for it, it shall as level to your judgment 'pear as day does to your eye.

[ Ophelia screaming ] -How now, what noise is that?

O heat, dry up my brains!

Tears seven times salt, burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, till our scale turn the beam!

-♪ They bore him barefaced ♪ ♪ On the bier ♪ -Rose of May.

Dear maid, kind sister.

-♪ Hey, non nonny, hey ♪ ♪ And in his grave rained many ♪ -Sweet Ophelia.

-♪ Many a tear ♪ -Is't possible a young maid's wits should be as mortal as an old man's life?

-♪ Fare you well, my dove ♪ -Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus.

-You must sing.

"A-down a-down" and you call him a-down-a.

Oh, how the wheel becomes it!

It was the false steward that stole the master's daughter.

-This nothing's more than matter.

-There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.

Pray you, love, remember.

There's pansies, that's for thoughts.

-A document in madness.

Thoughts and remembrance fitted.

-There's fennel for you... [ Breathing heavily ] ...and columbines.

There's rue for you.

There's rue for you!

And some for me.

We may call it "herb of grace o' Sundays."

You must wear yours with a difference.

[ Breathing heavily, panting ] There's a daisy.

I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.

♪ For bonny ♪ ♪ Sweet bonny is all my joy ♪ -Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, she turns to favor and to prettiness.

-♪ And will he not come again?

♪ ♪ He will not come again ♪ ♪ No, no, he is dead ♪ ♪ Gone to his deathbed ♪ ♪ His beard was as white as snow ♪ ♪ His hair like yellow gold ♪ ♪ He is gone, he is gone, he is gone ♪ ♪ As we cast away -- we cast away our moan ♪ ♪ God ha' mercy on his soul ♪ And to all Christians' souls, I pray God.

God be with you.

-Good bye.

Do you see this, O God?

-Laertes, I must commune with your grief, or you deny me right.

Go but apart, make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.

And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand they find us touched, we will our kingdom give, our crown, our life, and all that we call ours, to you in satisfaction.

But if not, be you content to lend your patience to us, and we shall jointly labor with your soul to give it due content.

-Let this be so.

His means of death, his obscure funeral cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth, that I must call it in question.

-So you shall, and where the offense is, let the great ax fall.

I pray you, go with me.

[ Rhythmic drums play ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -What are they that would speak with me?

-Sailors, sir.

They say they have letters for you.

-Let them come in.

I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

-God bless you, sir.

-Let Him bless thee too.

He shall, my lord, an 't please Him.

There's a letter for you, sir.

If your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

-"Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these sailors some means to the king.

They have letters for him.

Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase.

Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple I boarded them.

On the instant, they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner.

They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy, but they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them.

Let the king have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death.

I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb, yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter.

These good sailors will bring thee where I am.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course.

Of them I have much to tell thee.

Farewell.

He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet."

Uh, come.

Come, I will give you way for these your letters and do it the speedier that you may direct me from whom you brought them.

♪♪ -Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, and you must put me in your heart for friend, sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, that he which hath your noble father slain pursued my life.

-It well appears.

But tell me why you proceeded not against these feats, so criminal and so capital in nature, as by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, you mainly were stirred up.

-Oh, for two special reasons, which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed, but yet to me they're strong.

The queen his mother lives almost by his looks, and for myself -- my virtue or my plague be it either which -- she is so conjunctive to my life and soul that, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her.

The other motive is the great love the people bear him.

-And so have I a noble father lost, a sister driven into desp'rate terms, but my revenge will come.

-Break not your sleeps for that.

You must not think we are made of stuff so flat and dull that we can let our beard be shook with danger and think it pastime.

You shortly shall hear more.

I loved your father, and we love ourself, and that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-- [ Knock on door ] How now?

What news?

-Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.

This to your majesty, this to the queen.

-From Hamlet?

Who brought them?

-Sailors, they say, my lord.

I saw them not.

-Laertes, you shall hear them.

Leave us.

"High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom.

Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return.

Hamlet."

What should this mean?

Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse and no such thing?

-Know you the hand?

-'Tis Hamlet's character.

"Naked."

And in a postscript here, he says "alone."

Can you advise me?

-I am lost in it, my lord.

But let him come.

It warms the very sickness in my soul that I shall live and tell him to his teeth "Thus diest thou."

-If it be so, Laertes -- Will you be ruled by me?

-Ay, my lord, so you will not o'errule me to a peace.

-Oh, to thine own peace.

If he be now returned, I will work him to an exploit, now ripe in my device, under the which he shall not choose but fall.

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, but even his mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident.

-My lord, I will be ruled, the rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ.

-[ Chuckles ] It falls right.

You have been talked of since your travel much, and that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality wherein they say you shine.

-What part is that, my lord?

-For art and exercise in your defense and for your rapier most especial.

Laertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?

-Why ask you this?

-Hamlet comes back.

What would you undertake to show yourself indeed your father's son more than in words?

-To cut his throat in the church.

-No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.

Revenge should have no bounds.

But, good Laertes, will you do this?

Keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet, returned, shall know you are come home.

We'll put on those shall praise your excellence, bring you in fine together, and wager on your heads.

He, being remiss, most generous and free from all contriving, will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, or with a little shuffling, you may choose a sword unbated, and in a pass of practice requite him for your father.

-My lord, I will do it.

And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, can save the thing from death that is but scratched withal.

I'll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, it may be death.

-Let's further think of this, weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape.

If this should fail, and that our drift look through our bad performance, 'twere better not assayed.

Therefore this project should have a back or second that might hold if this did blast in proof.

Soft, let me see.

We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings-- I ha 't!

When in your motion you are hot and dry, and make your bouts more violent to that end and that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venomed stuck, our purpose may hold there.

How now, sweet queen?

-One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow.

Your sister's drowned, Laertes.

-Drowned?

-There is a willow grows askant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

Therewith fantastic garlands did she make of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do "dead men's fingers" call them.

There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook.

Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like a while they bore her up, which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and endued unto that element.

But long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.

-Alas, then she is drowned.

-Drowned.

Drowned.

-Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, therefore I forbid my tears.

But yet It is our trick.

Nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will.

When these are gone, the woman will be out.

Adieu, my lord.

I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze, but that this folly drowns it.

-Let's follow, Gertrude.

How much I had to do to calm his rage.

Now fear I this will give it start again.

Therefore, let's follow.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?

-I tell thee she is.

-How can that be?

Unless she drowned herself in her own defense?

-[ Chuckles ] Why, 'tis found so.

-Give me leave.

Here lies the water.

Good?

Here stands the man.

Good?

If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes.

Mark you that.

But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself.

Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

-Will you ha' the truth on 't?

If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

-Why, there thou sayst.

And the more pity that great folk should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christian.

Come, my spade.

There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers.

[ Both laugh ] -Go to!

-Oh!

What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

-The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

-I like thy wit well, in good faith.

The gallows does well.

But -- But -- But how does it well?

To 't again, come.

-"Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?"

-Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

-[ Chuckles ] Marry, now I can tell.

-To it.

-Mass, I cannot tell.

-Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.

And, when you are asked this question next, say "A grave-maker."

For the houses he makes lasts till doomsday.

[ Laughs ] -[ Laughs ] -[ Laughter fads ] Go, get thee in.

And -- And fetch me a stoup of liquor.

♪ When I was young in love, in love ♪ ♪ For me, it was so sweet ♪ ♪ And nothing but my love, my love ♪ ♪ Could make me feel complete ♪ -Has this fellow no feeling of his business?

He sings in grave-making.

-Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

-'Tis e'en so.

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

-♪ But time with all her stealing steps ♪ ♪ Have clawed me in her clutch ♪ ♪ And shipped me to another age ♪ ♪ As if I had never been such ♪ [ Horatio laughs ] -That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once.

How the knave jowls it to the ground as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder.

This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o'erreaches, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

-Ay, my lord.

-♪ We'll need an axe and a spade, a spade ♪ ♪ And indeed a shrouding sheet ♪ ♪ To build a pit of clay, a grave ♪ ♪ For such a guest is meet ♪ [ Horatio laughs ] Oh, yes!

-There's another.

Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?

Where be his quiddities now, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?

Why does he suffer this mad knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel and will not tell him of his action of battery?

I will speak to this fellow.

Whose grave's this, sirrah?

-Mine, sir.

[ Laughter ] -I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in 't.

-You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.

For my part, I do not lie in 't, yet it is mine.

-Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't and say it is thine.

'Tis for the dead, not for the quick.

Therefore thou liest.

-'Tis a quick lie, sir.

'Twill away again from me to you.

-What man dost thou dig it for?

-For no man, sir.

-What woman then?

-For none, neither.

-Who is to be buried in 't?

-For one that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's, um... dead.

-How absolute the knave is!

[ Gravedigger laughs ] We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.

How long hast thou been grave-maker?

-I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

-How long will a man lie in the earth ere he rot?

-Faith, if he be not rotten before he die -- as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in -- he will last you some eight year, nine year.

A tanner will last you nine year.

-Why he more than another?

-Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.

Here's a skull now hath lien you in the earth three-and-twenty years.

-Whose was it?

-A whoreson mad fellow's it was.

Whose do you think it was?

-Nay, I know not.

-A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!

He p-- [ Laughing ] He p-- [ Continues laughing ] He -- He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.

This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

-This?

-E'en that.

Let me see.

Alas, poor Yorick!

I knew him, Horatio.

A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!

My gorge rises at it.

Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.

Where be your gibes now?

Your gambols?

Your songs?

your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Not one now to mock your own grinning?

Quite chapfallen?

Now get you to my lady's chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.

Make her laugh at that.

Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

-What's that, my lord?

-Dost thou think Alexander the Great looked o' this fashion in the earth?

-E'en so.

-And smelt so?

Pah!

-[ Laughs ] E'en so, my lord.

-To what base uses we may return, Horatio.

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

-'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

-No, faith, not a jot.

But to follow him thither, with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust.

The dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?

-♪ Can take your journey ♪ -But soft, but soft awhile.

Here comes the king, the queen, the courtiers.

Who is this they follow?

And with such maimed rites?

Couch we awhile and mark.

-♪ When you go ♪ -♪ When you go ♪ -What ceremony else?

-That is Laertes, a very noble youth, mark.

-What ceremony else?

-Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranty.

Her death was doubtful, and, but that great command o'ersways the order, she should in ground unsanctified been lodged till the last trumpet.

For charitable prayers shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.

Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, her maiden strewments, and the bringing home of bell and burial.

-Must there no more be done?

-No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead to sing a requiem and such rest to her as to peace-parted souls.

-Lay her in the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring!

I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering angel shall my sister be while thou liest howling.

-What?

The fair Ophelia?

-Sweets to the sweet, farewell.

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, and not have strewed thy grave.

-O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of.

Hold off the earth till I've held her once more in my arms.

[ Gasps ] [ Cries ] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat a mountain you have made' t' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus.

-What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?

This is I, Hamlet.

-The devil take thy soul!

-Thou pray'st not well.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat, for though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I in me something dangerous, which let thy wisdom fear.

Hold off thy hand.

-Pluck them asunder.

-Hamlet!

-My lord, be quiet.

-Why, I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag.

-O my son, what theme?

-I loved Ophelia.

Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.

What wilt thou do for her?

-O, he is mad, Laertes!

-For love of God, forbear him.

-'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do.

Woo't weep?

Woo't fight?

Woo't fast?

Woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?

I'll do it.

Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I.

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us, till our ground, singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart.

Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.

-This is mere madness.

And thus awhile the fit will work on him.

Anon, as gentle as a dove, his silence will sit drooping.

-Hear you, sir.

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever.

But it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

-Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.

We'll put the matter to the present push.

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet thereby shall we see.

Till then in patience our proceeding be.

-♪ When you go ♪ ♪ When you go ♪ ♪ When you take that lonesome road ♪ ♪ No one in this world can take your journey ♪ ♪ When you go you have to go alone ♪ ♪ When you go ♪ ♪ You'll have to go ♪ ♪ Alone ♪ -So much for this, sir.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.

-That is most certain.

-Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark groped I to find out them, had my desire, fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew to mine own room again, making so bold my fears forgetting manners to unfold their grand commission, where I found, Horatio -- O royal knavery -- an exact command, larded with many several sorts of reasons that on the supervise -- no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grinding of the ax -- my head should be struck off.

-Is it possible?

-Here's the commission.

Read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?

-I beseech you.

-I sat me down, devised a new commission, wrote it fair.

An earnest conjuration from the king, that, on the view and knowing of these contents, without debatement further, more or less, he should those bearers put to sudden death, not shriving time allowed.

-How was this sealed?

-Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

I had my father's signet in my purse, Which was the model of that royal seal.

Folded the writ up in the form of the other, subscribed it, gave it the impression, placed it safely, the changeling never known.

Now, the next day was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent thou knowest already.

-So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to it.

-Why, man, they did make love to this employment.

They are not near my conscience.

-Why, what a king is this!

-Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon.

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother, popped in between the election and my hopes, thrown out his angle for my proper life -- and with such cozenage -- is it not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm?

And is it not to be damned to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?

-It must be shortly known to him what is the issue of the business there.

-It will be short.

The interim's mine, and a man's life's no more than to say "one."

But I am very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself.

For by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his.

I'll court his favors.

But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me into a towering passion.

-Osric: Whoo!

-Peace, who comes here?

-Your Lordship is right welcome back.

-I humbly thank you, sir.

Dost know this waterfly?

-No, my good lord.

-Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from His Majesty.

-I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.

-Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes, believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of the most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing.

-What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

-Of Laertes?

-His purse is empty already.

All golden words are spent.

-Of him, sir.

-I know you are not ignorant.

-I would you did.

Yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me, but... Well?

-You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is-- -I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence.

But to know a man well were to know himself.

-I mean, sir, for his weapon.

-What's his weapon?

-Rapier and dagger.

-That's two of his weapons.

But, well-- -The hing, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits.

He hath laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

-Sir, if it please His Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me.

Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose.

I will win for him if I can.

If not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

-Shall I deliver you e'en so?

-To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.

-I commend my duty to your lordship.

-Yours.

-Hmph!

[ Laughter ] -You will lose, my lord.

-I do not think so.

Since he went abroad I have been in continual practice.

I shall win at the odds.

But thou wouldst not think how ill all's hereabout my heart.

But it is no matter.

-If your mind dislike anything, obey it.

I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.

-Not a whit.

We defy augury.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

If it be now, 'tis not to come.

If it be not to come, it will be now.

If it be not now, yet it will come.

The readiness is all.

Since no man knows of aught he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes?

Let be.

[ Upbeat drum music plays ] [ Lords and attendants cheering ] -♪ Ha!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ ♪ Hoo!

♪ [ Lords and attendants applause ] -Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

-Give me your pardon, sir.

-I have done you wrong.

But pardon it as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, how I am punished with a sore distraction.

What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Was it Hamlet wronged Laertes?

Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be taken away, and when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, then Hamlet does it not.

Hamlet denies it.

Who does it, then?

His madness.

-I am satisfied in nature, whose motive in this case should stir me most to my revenge.

But in my terms of honor I stand aloof and will no reconcilement till by some elder masters of known honor I have a voice and precedent of peace to keep my name ungored.

But till that time I do accept your offered love like love and will not wrong it.

-I embrace it freely and will this brothers' wager frankly play.

[ Lords and attendants applause ] -Give us the foils.

Come on.

-Come, one for me.

-I'll be your foil, Laertes.

In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star in the darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.

-You mock me, sir.

-No, by this hand.

-Give them the foils, Osric.

You know the wager?

-Very well, my lord.

Your grace has laid the odds on the weaker side.

I do not fear it.

I have seen you both.

But, since he is better, we have therefore odds.

-This is too heavy.

Let me see another.

-This likes me well.

These foils have all a length?

-Ay, my good lord.

-Set me the stoups of wine on this table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit or quit in answer of the third exchange, the king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath, and in the cup an union shall he throw, richer than that which four successive kings have worn.

Come, begin.

And you, the judge, bear a wary eye.

[ Laughter ] -Come on, sir.

-Come, my lord.

-Fencers!

Ready?

Fence!

Halt!

Nothing!

Fencers!

Ready?

Fence!

[ Both grunting ] -One.

-No.

-Judgment!

-A hit, a very palpable hit.

[ Attendants cheer ] -Well, again.

-Stay!

Hamlet, here's to thy health.

This pearl is thine.

-I'll play this bout first.

Set it by awhile.

[ Attendants clap ] Come.

-Fencers!

Ready?

Fence!

-Another hit.

What say you?

A touch, a touch.

I do confess it.

[ Attendants cheer ] -Our son shall win.

-He's fat and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin.

Rub thy brows.

[ Attendants laugh ] The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

-Good madam.

-Gertrude, do not drink.

-I will, my lord.

I pray you pardon me.

[ Laughs ] -It is the poisoned cup.

-It is too late.

-I dare not drink yet, madam, by and by.

-Come, let me wipe thy face.

-My lord, I'll hit him now.

-I do not think 't.

-And yet it is almost against my conscience.

-Come, for the third, Laertes.

You do but dally.

I pray you pass with your best violence.

I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

-Say you so?

Come on.

-Fencers.

Ready?

Fence!

[ Both grunting ] -Nothing neither way!

[ Attendants clap ] -Have at you now!

-Ow!

-Part them.

They are incensed.

-Nay!

Come again.

[ Woman screams ] -Look to the queen there, ho!

-Lord, they bleed on both sides.

-How is 't, Laertes?

-As a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.

I am justly killed with mine own treachery.

-How does the queen?

-She swoons to see them bleed.

-No, no, the drink.

The drink!

O, my dear Hamlet!

The drink, the drink!

I am poisoned.

[ Hamlet gasps, breathes heavily] -Villany!

Let the door be locked.

Treachery!

Seek it out.

-It is here, Hamlet.

Hamlet, thou art slain.

No medicine in the world can do thee good.

In thee there is not half an hour's life.

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenomed.

The foul practice hath turned itself on me.

Lo, here I lie, never to rise again.

Thy mother's poisoned.

I can no more.

-The king, the king's to blame.

The point envenomed too!

Then, venom, to thy work.

-Ah!

O, yet defend me, friends!

I am but hurt.

-Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned beast, Drink off this potion.

Follow my mother.

-He is justly served.

It is a poison tempered by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father's death come not on thee, nor thine on me.

-Heaven make thee free of it.

I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio.

Wretched queen, adieu.

You that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time as this fell sergeant, Death, is strict in his arrest, O, I could tell you.

But let it be.

Horatio, I am dead.

Thou livest.

Report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.

-Never believe it.

Here's yet some liquor left.

As thou art a man, give me the cup.

Let go!

By heaven, I'll have it.

O God, Horatio, what a wounded name, things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.

O, I die, Horatio!

The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.

The rest is silence.

-[ Cries ] -Now cracks a noble heart.

Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry, Gods cry ♪ ♪ I could make the Gods cry ♪ ♪♪ -♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry, Gods cry ♪ ♪ I could make the Gods cry ♪ ♪ I could tell you a tale ♪ ♪ Gods cry ♪ ♪ Gods cry, Gods cry ♪ ♪ I could make the Gods cry ♪ -♪ The gods cryyyyyy ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] [ Upbeat music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause continue ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause continue ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -To find out more about this and other "Great Performances" programs visit pbs.org/greatperfomances.

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